[lbo-talk] OWS Teach-In: Where to start?

[Andy]

On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 2:09 PM,  <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
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>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
>
> When I talk to the OWS kids, I'm going to try to do some version of Marx's argument about how the joint-stock company represents the partial undoing of capitalism within capitalism. (I.e., shareholders serve no useful function - so if they can hire managers to run "their" companies, why can't workers?) But we need some institution like the corporation to organize production - what do they think would replace it? Small proprietorships?
> ---------
>
> Well, corporations were initially funded and allowed to establish themselves (sometimes as monopolies) with the proviso that they provide a socially useful function. Their "existence" was predicated on having redeeming social value. Their current claim to persenhood runs counter to that, claiming a kind of "right to self-defense" and eternal life despite anything they might do that actually harms the social body.
>
> So, if "corporation" relates to size -- yes we need some big things: utilities, some manufacturing. But it also relates to serving social ends, and that means a different that they have a diff political role than they do now.

You might mention and explore how the term "corporation" has replaced
"capital" in most every contemporary critique or complaint, and what's
wrong with that.  I think just bringing it up might get gears turning.

-- 
Andy